For travel to South-East Asia for 4 months, how many malaria pills should I get in England and how many there?

Should I get most of them in South-East Asia or here? Any other opinions on this subject welcome.

Just get a maleria jab

Unless you are going to the inner jungles, you shouldn't need any - but check with your physician.

I have been travelling to Thailand for the past 35 years and have never taken malaria pills.

I've been living in South-East Asia and traveling a lot around here. I never needed a Malaria pill. I thought it's the Amazon where u need it. I just don't understand what the westerners think of this region! You DO NOT need any malaria pills unless u r intending to go inside the deep jungles in this continent.

Foolish to waste your money on them unless your going to places no man has been before i.e. in the rain forest and jungle areas. If your staying in resort area you will not need them.

get a whole ton of pill from england, here the pill is fake.

Malaria and dengue fever are both common in Southeast Asia - even in the capital cities such as Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok.

You contract malaria from night time mosquitoes and dengue from daytime mosquitoes.

There is no prophylactics for dengue.

Unless you are going to rural locations - it doesn't necessarily need to be jungles or forest areas but rather anywhere there are pools of stagnant water - then spraying exposed skin areas with a repellent containing DEET will suffice.

If you are staying in a rural location where there are a lot of pigs - not pig farms but village pigs - you might consider vaccination against Japanese Encephalitis.

If you are particularly concerned then get the first months supply of 100mg doxycycline in the UK.

Start taking a week before travelling. You can buy more over the counter in Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.

It's normally recommended to only take doxy for three months but four months won't be a problem. You need to continue taking it for a month after leaving a malaria area.

Keep in mind this a tetracycline derivative so if you get ill and need to take antibiotics while away drugs in the tetracycline family won't work because of the level of doxycycline already in your body.

Personally though, I don't take anything while in Asia. I've had dengue but not malaria.

The post about all the pharmaceuticals being fake is just rubbish so ignore it.

I'm going to Thailand soon too, and will be visiting high-risk areas for Malaria.

Most of Thailand is listed as low-risk for malaria, but the borders with Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia are all high risk, as are those countries themselves.

I'll be taking Malerone - only for the periods I'll spend on the borders or in the neighbouring countries. You need to take it two days before you visit a high-risk area, for the duration of your time there, and then for one week after you return. It's more expensive than some other medications, but there are fewer side effects and it's generally thought of as offering better protection.

You should seriously consider buying a mosquito net. Mine is a self-supporting one, which means that you don't need hooks to hang it from. Good ones are coated in Permethrin, which is an effective bug-repellent,

Deet is, as another person has suggested, another thing you should be carrying. 100% Deet is best for very high risk areas (jungle in post-monsoon conditions, or areas near stagnant water, when mosquitoes are very active). 50% Deet is good for more general use, but when there's still a high risk of being bitten. You can use lower percentages of Deet when there's a normal risk. It will repel other bugs besides mosquitoes, including leeches (although leech socks are also advised if you'll be jungle trekking).

The reason for avoiding continuous use of the more concentrated Deet is that it's strong stuff and really not ideal to have on your skin all the time.

You can read an interesting study of various mosquito repellents here (some poor guinea pigs were desperate enough for cash to stick their arms in tanks full of hungry mosquitoes):

http://www.medicine.ox.ac.uk/bandolier/band150/b150-6.html

Hope this helps!